Bug#411137: tomcat5.5 install fails: "initscript tomcat5.5, action "start" failed."

[Mattias Wikstrom]

Package: tomcat5.5
Version: 5.5.20-2

When trying to install tomcat5.5 on a new Debian Etch system (vmware virtual
server), the install fails:

# apt-get install tomcat5.5
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
tomcat5.5 is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up tomcat5.5 (5.5.20-2) ...
Starting Tomcat servlet engine: tomcat5.5invoke-rc.d: initscript tomcat5.5,
action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing tomcat5.5 (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 tomcat5.5
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The logs have this to say:

# head /var/log/tomcat5.5/catalina_2007-02-16.log
Using CATALINA_BASE:   /var/lib/tomcat5.5
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /usr/share/tomcat5.5
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /var/lib/tomcat5.5/temp
Using JRE_HOME:       /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj
The java-gcj-compat-dev environment currently doesn't support
a security manager. Please check the TOMCAT5_SECURITY variable
in /etc/default/tomcat5.5.

After I disable the security manager, the install succeeds:

# grep TOMCAT5_SECURITY /etc/default/tomcat5.5
TOMCAT5_SECURITY=no

# apt-get install tomcat5.5
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
tomcat5.5 is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up tomcat5.5 (5.5.20-2) ...
Starting Tomcat servlet engine: tomcat5.5.